I know what is good.

Bagged Lunch

Today is a heavy day. Unfortunately, I sent the kids off to school without adequate preparation for what they might encounter from teachers or classmates. Of course, none of their peers were even born in 2001. Still, I like to provide them with my take on the events. That way, should there be chatter on the bus or in the schoolyard, my children will have knowledge that is rooted in facts.

On the plus side, I did send them off with relatively nutritious bagged lunches. Mostly because school lunch in America still largely sucks. And by sucks, I mean it’s abysmal. We can talk more about that later.

For now, how about some quick thoughts on bagged lunches.

Even at good schools, the day can seem to drag on forever. I remember what it was like growing up. Heck, I remember what it was like to work a desk job, where I watched the clock and just waited for lunch time to roll around.

Lunch can be an oasis in the middle of the dessert of the day.

So, as a parent, I want the lunch to be something the kids will enjoy. But I also want it to be relatively healthful and nutritious. It also needs to be quick and easy to prepare. Finally, the foods it contains have to make it through the morning without refrigeration.

Thankfully, we live in a place where kids can still take peanut butter to school. Seriously, I don’t know how I would be able to survive without the stuff. Okay, sure, I suppose the kids might be able to adapt to some other form of nut butter. But those are just stupid expensive.

One thing I love about my kids is that they’re content taking the same foods to lunch every day.

For the girl, that’s a peanut butter and honey sandwich on 100% whole wheat bread, a half cup of frozen peas, a half cup of frozen mango, and a bag of Trader Joe’s cheese puffs. The boy gets one half of a peanut butter and honey sandwich on the same bread, plus a selection of three items from the following list:
– A banana
– Seven organic dried apricots
– A Kashi crunchy granola bar
– A bag of Trader Joe’s cheese puffs
– A package of dried seaweed snacks

You’ll notice that there’s nothing homemade in any of that. Sure, I assemble the sandwich. But I’m not baking bread, or cooking anything for these lunch sacks. I’m just not one of those parents. But I admire them tremendously.

If the kids are lucky, they’ll get a homemade dinner. If they aren’t lucky, it will be canned beans and pre-shredded cheese in a whole wheat tortilla wrap for burrito night. Although, they may think of themselves luckier on “burrito night” because they love those bean and cheese burritos. So much so, that they even have a fantasy of opening up their own burrito shop.

But that’s a story for another day.

Speaking of the future, and all of this back to school stuff, tomorrow I will be sharing the results of this past weekend’s Tour de Cider Donut: Championship Edition.

Until then, hang tight. Enjoy the cool breezes. And look for beauty wherever you can find it.

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The thing I remember most about school lunches was that in high school I went to a very school with a very small cafeteria. We had to walk down the hall to the cafeteria, buy our lunch, and walk it back to our homeroom classroom to eat. And, lunch for us started at 10:30AM. By the time you walked down, got your lunch, and got back to your classroom to sit down and eat it the time might be 10:45. Who wants to eat anything resembling lunch that early? We had another class at 11, so I had to also eat fast.

To this day, I generally eat my lunches early, and I always eat very fast because I was trained through public school lunches not to take a long time. It drives my wife crazy how fast I eat.